General and Specific Overtraining

[Gary Gibson]

Do you think it's possible to be overtrained in general, but specifically burnt out on one movement?

I refer of course to my current squatting troubles. I've been squatting to distraction for the past two years. I had good results, but the relentless volume (always 30-50 reps between 70 and 90% each session) and intensity has finally should my squat into the ground. I can't jump or run much at all either right now.

I'm taking a big rest from squats for the next few weeks (those of you who've been following along understand the magnitude of this for me). I would like to focus on Other Things for a while, but I'm not sure when to do that.

Overtraining is systematic so even my upper body would be affected, no? Right now, however, I feel like I could still make progress on my bench press and chin up. I even feel in shape to deadlift. My progress on bench has been severely lagging that of the squat simply because I've only given the bench press token attention until lately. The deadlift has been dragged up by the squat, but I feel I could get it up even more right now because I've recently watched it leap ahead while my squat has stagnated. I was thinking that when I did start squatting again in a few week, I would of hold the intensity down to under 70% (meaning I wouldn't even use a belt) for a while for limited volume.

Thanks for reading and for your suggestions.

[ColoWayno]

Could it just be your knees talking?

[TTT]

to be honest, since you are taking a week or 2 away from squatting, I'd personally just take a break from knee bending.
so no deads.

bench and chins and overhead press can still be done... and I would do that.

I took a week off as I hurt my back.
so I just went out and did chins every second day during that week

[Joel Chapman]

Gary, I have found that some lifting is better for overreached/overtrained recovery than no lifting.

What I mean is I think I recover faster with light workouts vs. no workouts. I would reconsider taking an entire two or three weeks off of squatting. Take a week if you have to, but then add in "mickey mouse" squat workouts. These could be: just do your warmups sets; just work up to two sets of five at 225#; 225 x 3 then 275x2 then 315 x 1; etc.

These could be done as a warmup before a bench workout (or DL for that matter). This also helps mentally too. You don't have to worry about going in and squatting. You are going in for some bench work, and oh yeah, I'll warm up with a little bit of easy squatting first...

[Gary Gibson]

Joel, it's worse than I originally thought. My squat and deadlift are both down around 20%. That's no joke. At this point I'm really afraid to rush back to any loading at all with them for fear of digging a deeper hole. I'm taking at least another two weeks off. I just did a Smolov base phase after months of high volume squatting. I think a few weeks off is warranted. I mean, I can't even jump more than a couple inches off the ground right now because my quad insertions are so fucked up.

When I do get back to squatting and pulling, I'm going to work my way back up slowly over the course of a few months. Going to go through novice and intermediate progression. It's going to feel weird squatting 185 x5 x3, but that's what's going to have to happen. (Edit: I still plan to finish this year @200 lbs with a 500 lb SQ and 600 lb sumo DL, both with a belt. Also plan to have a press and bench a bit more in balance with my lower body strength, along with a hint of my old chinning prowess.)

I still wonder if it's okay to train bench, press and chin ups hard right now. I'm not suffering from altered mood, blunted appetite or fatigue. My bench actually improved slightly while my squat and pull plummeted. I trained bench w/ 220 x5 x3 a couple days ago and today I pressed 119 x5, x5, x4 and chinned w/ 45 lbs added for x5, x4, x3 (haven't done press or chin in a loooong time and didn't know where to start; will lower the press by 5 lbs and the chin by 10). I hope I'm not screwing with my squat/pull recovery by training upper body regularly. I'd taken a week off from all lifting after my last cycle and I feel ready to train the stuff that still works.


Edit: Joel, I'll eventually do exactly as you for a couple of weeks, but only after a couple of weeks of not squatting or pulling. In the meantime I'm finding new use for lunges. I did them yesterday and they felt really good. I would never do these as a strength-building movement, but they seem to have a place as rehab/prehab. They also tell you a lot about discrepancies in leg health and strength, much like pistols do.

[zzt]

Theres overtraining/overuse and theres accomodation. Perhaps its a bit of both. I think if you intermittently spend time away from squat volume (and just do squat maintenance work so you dont loose your groove), and get your volume from something else, like FSquats or lunges, then your squat will benefit. I have found when my squat stalls, if I front squat for 4 weeks, and my Fsquat goes up, then I will get carryover. Its not 100% carry over mind you, but its some....and if I hadn't changed up my training i would have got zero gain on my squat.. when you go back to regular back squat volume, they feel fresh again. I think accomodation is often misdiagnosed as overtraining

[Gary Gibson]

Theres overtraining/overuse and theres accomodation. Perhaps its a bit of both. I think if you intermittently spend time away from squat volume (and just do squat maintenance work so you dont loose your groove), and get your volume from something else, like FSquats or lunges, then your squat will benefit. I have found when my squat stalls, if I front squat for 4 weeks, and my Fsquat goes up, then I will get carryover. Its not 100% carry over mind you, but its some....and if I hadn't changed up my training i would have got zero gain on my squat.. when you go back to regular back squat volume, they feel fresh again. I think accomodation is often misdiagnosed as overtraining

The big question on my mind is if this is really overtraining or just the requisite drop in performance following overreaching that will in turn be followed by supercompensation.

I'm not suffering any of the global symptoms of overtraining; I just can't squat or pull for shit right now. But otherwise I really feel fine and my upper body lifts are fine too.

[MazdaMatt]

I have no useful input, I'm just chiming in to belittle you for having a press that almost identically matches mine. Pussy.

That is all,
Matt

[zzt]

The big question on my mind is if this is really overtraining or just the requisite drop in performance following overreaching that will in turn be followed by supercompensation.

I'm not suffering any of the global symptoms of overtraining; I just can't squat or pull for shit right now. But otherwise I really feel fine and my upper body lifts are fine too.

Only one way to find out right. If you back off to maintenance loads for a few weeks, you should get that supercomp surge....from previous posts, I think your knees need a break

Regarding accomodation (appologies if this is not what you wanted in this thread, but it may be relevant to your current predicament)
I have been thinking a lot about some stuff in Satziorsky, regarding variability of training stimuli. Specifically on page 103. He uses the example of hammer throwers and their strength exercise complexes being changed every 2 mths to avoid accomodation. For the Squat specialist, your target 'event' becomes squat, but based on the requirement for variability, it may not be most efficient over the long term to just do a load of squats....i dunno

[Joel Chapman]

Joel, it's worse than I originally thought. My squat and deadlift are both down around 20%. That's no joke. At this point I'm really afraid to rush back to any loading at all with them for fear of digging a deeper hole. I'm taking at least another two weeks off. I just did a Smolov base phase after months of high volume squatting. I think a few weeks off is warranted. I mean, I can't even jump more than a couple inches off the ground right now because my quad insertions are so fucked up.

When I do get back to squatting and pulling, I'm going to work my way back up slowly over the course of a few months. Going to go through novice and intermediate progression. It's going to feel weird squatting 185 x5 x3, but that's what's going to have to happen. (Edit: I still plan to finish this year @200 lbs with a 500 lb SQ and 600 lb sumo DL, both with a belt. Also plan to have a press and bench a bit more in balance with my lower body strength, along with a hint of my old chinning prowess.)

I still wonder if it's okay to train bench, press and chin ups hard right now. I'm not suffering from altered mood, blunted appetite or fatigue. My bench actually improved slightly while my squat and pull plummeted. I trained bench w/ 220 x5 x3 a couple days ago and today I pressed 119 x5, x5, x4 and chinned w/ 45 lbs added for x5, x4, x3 (haven't done press or chin in a loooong time and didn't know where to start; will lower the press by 5 lbs and the chin by 10). I hope I'm not screwing with my squat/pull recovery by training upper body regularly. I'd taken a week off from all lifting after my last cycle and I feel ready to train the stuff that still works.


Edit: Joel, I'll eventually do exactly as you for a couple of weeks, but only after a couple of weeks of not squatting or pulling. In the meantime I'm finding new use for lunges. I did them yesterday and they felt really good. I would never do these as a strength-building movement, but they seem to have a place as rehab/prehab. They also tell you a lot about discrepancies in leg health and strength, much like pistols do.

Wow, it sounds like you are in pretty bad shape right now. It is interesting to hear your thoughts on lunges. I think they get a bad name unnecessarily. They can be a useful tool.

It almost seems as if you are injured, rather than overtrained. There doesn't appear to be any systemic signs of overtraining, so I would say that you are doing the right thing by focusing on the upper body temporarily.